Wednesday, 19 November 2025

 Chris CREWTHER (Mornington) (19:20): (1437) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Public and Active Transport. The action I seek is for the minister to visit Mornington Tourist Railway to meet with volunteers and me and to support them to repair and reopen the existing railway line between Baxter and Moorooduc stations. My electorate in Mornington along with the electorate of Mildura, where I used to live, are the only two electorates in the whole of Victoria with zero passenger rail services. We are fortunate though in the Mornington electorate that the Mornington Tourist Railway have maintained and upgraded the line between Moorooduc and Mornington for tourist railway services with diesel and steam trains, and they continue to do that on a regular basis. The original Mornington line was closed in 1981, before I was born, but the Mornington station where it is now – even though the original Mornington station has now been built over – and where the tourist railway goes is now the epicentre of Mornington, given significant growth on the eastern Nepean Highway since that time over 40 years ago.

The Mornington Tourist Railway have basically said that all they need is about $8 million to $9 million, versus hundreds of millions of dollars if this was done by government, to fix the railway line that is there now between Baxter station and Moorooduc station. This would enable trains to get to Baxter as they do already. You get a Metro electrified train to Frankston, and then you get the V/Line train to Baxter. Then people can get on the tourist railway line and enjoy that, whether it is diesel or steam, between Baxter and Mornington. What is more, it actually opens up the way for the return of passenger rail services, but on a very cheap scale; that is, people can then get a regular passenger rail service through to Frankston and then potentially continue on a V/Line service from Frankston all the way through to Mornington via Baxter.

This has strong support in the community, and it is the strong support of the community that I support as well. For many, many years now I have been a significant advocate for passenger rail. When I was in Mildura in the north-west of Victoria I advocated for the Murray Basin rail project, which was not only for freight but also would have opened the way for passenger rail services. While that was not done well and had a significant overspend, I would hope that services can be reintroduced there, and I state that in particular as the Shadow Assistant Minister for Public Transport. But I also used to be the north-west rail line spokesperson calling for the rail service to be restored between Maryborough and Mildura.

I will go back to the local railway line, though. This is a railway line that needs to be restored. We have a significant lack of bus and rail services in the Mornington electorate. In the past I was an advocate for the Baxter railway service duplication and electrification, which was scrapped by the Albanese Labor government – even though I secured hundreds of millions of dollars for that project – because it was not also supported by the state Labor government. Fortunately though I was able to ensure that the Kananook and Frankston commuter car parks were able to go ahead to help service the people who have to drive up to those stations to get railway services. I do urge the minister to take seriously the concerns of my local constituents.